Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(21)

The rain won’t let up, even as Wren and Aurora wind their way deeper into the forest, filling their baskets with mushrooms to bring back to Constance, who will sort them into two groups according to type—one for eating, and one for poisoning the darts. The later it gets, and the farther they go into the dense woods, the richer the undergrowth they find, littered with jewellike fungi that seem to glow in the final embers of daylight.

“I’m so hungry I think I might risk death for this one,” Aurora says, holding up a toadstool the size of her palm, its speckled top the lush red of an apple.

“Then I suppose I better keep a more careful eye on you,” Wren replies. As though Aurora was just a little girl who needed to be watched at all times.

Her words tickle an awareness at the edge of Aurora’s mind. “You still don’t trust me,” she says, turning to look at Wren plainly.

Wren shifts her basket. “And why should I?”

“Why wouldn’t you? After everything we’ve gone through to get this far . . .” Now that she’s gotten physically stronger, all the feelings she’s been pushing down for weeks rise back up, even stronger. “What must I do to prove to you that I’m sorry, that I want to make things right, that I will make things right?”

“It isn’t your intention that I doubt,” Wren says, unmoving. Her heart-shaped face looks innocent, somehow, in the darkness. Her damp hair clings to her cheeks.

“Then what?” Aurora moves closer to her, sensing there is something, some secret Wren has been keeping from her. “Why can’t we be friends, Wren? You were so kind to me once. I want you to trust me. I want . . .” She doesn’t know what else she wants, only that Wren’s resistance lights a fire in her, and at the same time, she feels a powerful need to break through that resistance, to shatter it like glass.

But Wren simply shakes her head and begins to turn away. “I don’t want your friendship, Princess,” she mutters quietly.

Aurora goes after her, grabs her arm. Wren gasps in surprise and turns back toward her again. “This is because of Heath, isn’t it?” Heat floods through her, but she can’t stop. They must speak of it. “That day in the gallery . . . when you found us . . . when you saw us—”

“Kissing.”

Aurora blushes furiously. “You were upset,” she insists. “I remember it vividly. You wouldn’t speak to me. I thought—”

“That I was envious. I know,” Wren says. Her eyes are impossible to read in the gathering darkness. Rain is still coming down and hovering, misting around them like a cold breath, making Aurora’s skin prickle and Wren’s glisten. “You said as much to the mad queen, but you were as wrong about me as you were about her.”

“What do you mean?” How is it possible, Aurora wonders, that the longer she knows Wren, the greater a mystery the girl becomes? “You loved him, didn’t you?”

Wren sighs and nods. “As a brother, Aurora.”

“A . . . brother,” Aurora repeats.

Wren squares her shoulders. “He is my brother, in every manner but birth. He took care of me for my whole life, practically raised me. I loved him, love him still, the way you love Isabelle.”

“But you tried to prevent us . . . you told me not to break his heart.”

Wren just looks at her. Finally she lifts the basket of mushrooms higher in her arms. “Love is like these, Aurora. There are all types. They may look the same to someone who doesn’t know the difference, but some kinds can heal, some can nourish, and others can kill.”

“But . . . I still don’t understand. Please, Wren, just give me a chance. We could die tomorrow. Malfleur’s soldiers have detected our camp. There may not be much time left and we are on the same side, don’t you see that? Don’t you feel that? That’s why I’m even here.”

Wren steps toward her—so close Aurora could swear she’s going to reach out for her hands. Wren’s lips part, and she pauses, as though holding back what she really wants to say. Her mouth waits like that, open just slightly, and Aurora feels overcome with the need to touch her.

“We are on the same side,” Wren says finally, softly; Aurora has to lean toward her to hear it. “But we are far apart, you and I. You’re a princess, I’m a servant.”

“But surely—”

Wren raises a hand, and the protestations die in Aurora’s throat. “I’ve already said, you don’t understand, and you can’t possibly. The best you can do is keep your distance until we reach Malfleur. If we reach her.”

And then she vanishes into the dense woods, leaving Aurora alone.

The silence when she’s gone seems to vibrate the mist, making the tiny hairs on Aurora’s arms stand on end. Aurora finds she is shaking, and not just from the cold.

She had thought Wren was beginning to warm to her. She had thought, if not a true friendship, then some sort of bond had started to develop between them. But now she feels slapped in the face—her cheeks sting with the humiliation of it, the frustration. She feels more certain than ever that Wren is hiding something, has been hiding something for a while now. Perhaps since before their journey even began. Here they are, both risking their lives, not just for Heath but for all the Sommeilians, and for Delucians too. Why should Wren keep secrets? And how dare she withhold her trust, when it’s the one and only thing Aurora has asked of her?